This is the website/blog of Philosopher Stephen Law. Stephen is Provost of Centre for Inquiry UK, Reader in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books (see sidebar). His other blog is THE OUTER LIMITS: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/blibnblob
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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Moving the Semantic Goalposts - some theological sleight-of-hand with words

The expression “moving the
goalposts” refers to a certain disreputable strategy in an argument. Suppose I
claim Fred has never been to Brazil. It’s pointed out to me that Fred went to
Brazil on his honeymoon. My claim has been shown to be false, but rather than
admit this I just switch claims: “Well, he’s never been to Brazil on business.” I have just moved the
goalposts. The analogy is with football. It looks like someone’s going to score
a goal, but suddenly, at the last moment, the goalposts are moved and the ball
misses the target.

We’re all familiar with this sort
of strategy. I focus here on a certain kind of example. It involves shifting
ones meaning. I call it Moving The Semantic Goalposts.

Moving
The Semantic Goalposts has been developed into something like an art form
in certain theological circles, where it is capable of producing a kind of
Intellectual Black Hole. In truth, comparatively few religious people engage in
this sort of tactic, certainly not in the systematic fashion described here.
Many rightly condemn it.

Let’s start with an example, which
I call effing the ineffable.

Effing the ineffable

This strategy is sometimes employed
to deal with the evidential problem of evil. As we saw in the introduction (2nd
appendix), traditional Theism faces an obvious objection: enormous amounts of
seemingly pointless suffering looks like very powerful evidence against the
existence of a maximally powerful and maximally good deity.

In response, some say, “Ah, yes.
You may indeed, have succeeded in showing that there’s no “God”, if that’s how you define him. But that’s
not what sophisticated theists such
as myself mean by ‘God’.” They then add, “What we’re talking about is, in
truth, ineffable and beyond our
comprehension. So you have not refuted my
sort of theism.”

Here’s an actual example made on a
blog by a Christian minister in response to the evidential problem of evil:

Fair
enough. If what people mean by “God” is something indefinable, something beyond
the grasp of our conceptual and linguistic apparatus, then obviously any
criticism of theism based on the assumption that God is, say, maximally
powerful, knowledgeable and good must miss its mark. If all that’s being
claimed is that there’s a transcendent something-or-other – an indescribable
cosmic thingamajig – well, yes, that’s certainly a hard claim to refute. I
concede that it isn’t vulnerable to the evidential problem of evil.

However,
those who play the ineffability card to deal with the problem of evil typically
don’t stop there. Even while insisting on god’s ineffability, they nevertheless
continue to eff the ineffable. They almost always go on to say all sorts of
positive things about god, such as that he is good, he is something we ought to
worship, and so on.

So, for
example, our Christian blogger, in response to the suggestion that enormous
amounts of pointless suffering are excellent evidence that there’s no good God,
adds:

what's at stake is what is meant or
understood by 'God' in that sentence. I'm not persuaded that we can put much
flesh on the bones of 'good' when that term is ascribed to God; the God I
worship is beyond good and evil, he doesn't fit within those categories. Though
I'd still want to call him 'good'...

When it’s pointed out that a good
God would not, presumably, engage in the indiscriminate torture of children, or
unleash hundreds of millions of years of animal pain and suffering for no good
reason, God’s goodness turns out to be of an ineffable variety. However, it
subsequently turns out we can put some
“flesh on the bones of ‘good’” when applied to God, because it’s then supposed
that “good” is, say, a rather more appropriate way of describing God than, say,
“indifferent”, “callous”, or “evil”. Indeed, our blogger speaks of the “God I
worship”. But this raises the question: why is it that our grasp of the meaning
of “good” as applied to God won’t allow us to say that the indiscriminate
torture of children is evidence there’s no such God, yet is sufficient to allow
us to say that God nevertheless merits our boundless adoration, gratitude and
praise?

Let me clear about what I am and am
not criticising here. Is God ineffable and beyond our comprehension? Let’s
acknowledge the possibility that the answer: “In one way yes and in another no”
might be correct. I’m neither rejecting that suggestion, nor criticising anyone
for making it. What I’m objecting to is the unjustified
and partisan use of this suggestion to immunize theism against powerful
counter arguments, while at the same time allowing a degree of effability
whenever, say, there appears to be something positive to be said in its favour.

Seesaw meanings

Effing the ineffable involves an
example of what I call a seesaw meaning.
It relies on seesawing between two meanings of an expression. Suppose I ask
someone to go to the bank. They say there are no such financial institutions
nearby. I say I meant the riverbank. They say there’s no point: you can’t take
money out of a river. This irritating individual is seesawing between two
meanings of the word “bank”. When it suits them for the word to mean one thing,
they tilt the seesaw in one direction. When it suits them for the word to mean
the other thing, they tilt it back the other way. Effing the ineffable involves
seesawing between effable and ineffable meanings of the word “God”.

Defending the
evil God hypothesis

The mischievous
character of effing the ineffable is nicely brought out by noting how the exact
same seesaw strategy can be used to immunize other sorts of god hypothesis
against criticism.

Take the evil
god hypothesis outlined in my introduction. Suppose the universe is the
creation of a maximally powerful and evil being. As I pointed out, this claim
faces an objection mirroring the evidential problem of evil – the evidential
problem of good. Surely there’s far too much good stuff – too much love,
laughter and ice cream – for the universe to be creation of such an evil being?

But now imagine another Earth-like
planet where theists believe in, not a good god, but this evil god. Call this
planet Eth. The Ethians are struck by the problem of good, and some of them
reject belief in an evil God on that basis. But other Ethians remain committed
to their deity. And some of them attempt to deal with the problem of good by
means of the same sort of semantic sleight-of-hand outlined above. When critics
raise the problem of good, these Ethians say:

Ah, I see you are guilty of a crude
misunderstanding. True, evil god creates love, laughter and ice cream, etc. but
you must remember that ‘evil’, as applied to god, means something other than it
means when applied to us Ethians. Indeed, God's ‘evilness’ is of an ineffable,
incomprehensible sort.

If these Ethians nevertheless
continue to express horror at the boundless cruelty and malice of their deity,
perhaps even using him to explain all the bad stuff that exists (“Look at all
this terrible suffering – clearly this is evidence that evil god exists!”) most
of us would see through their
linguistic ruse straight away.

Karen Armstrong’s The Case For
God

In The Case for God, Karen Armstrong, former Roman Catholic nun and best-selling
author of several books about religion, defends her variety of religious belief
against the attacks of the “new Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and
Christopher Hitchens, whom she condemns as theologically illiterate.[ii]

Armstrong also addresses the
evidential problem of evil. In response to the question, “How do we account for
the great evil we see in a world supposedly created and governed by a
benevolent deity?” Armstrong maintains this question betrays a misunderstanding of what “God” means. “God” says
Armstrong, “is merely a symbol of indescribable transcendence.” It points
“beyond itself to an ineffable reality”[iii].
Armstrong insists that

All faith systems
have been at pains to show that the ultimate cannot be adequately expressed in
any theoretical system, however august, because it lies beyond the reach of
words and concepts.[iv]

Of course, by insisting “God” is
nothing more than a symbol of indescribable transcendence, Armstrong begs the
question of whether there is any indescribable transcendence for “God” to
label. Perhaps there isn’t.

Still, Armstrong does at least
succeed in rendering her brand of theism immune to the evidential problem of
evil. If God can’t be described, then he can’t be described as, say,
all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. Armstrong seems to concede that the
problem of evil would indeed constitute an excellent argument against the
existence of a God of that sort. But
that’s not the sort of God that, she claims, the vast majority of religious
people down through the centuries, have believed in.

So far, so good. Armstrong has
dealt with the problem of evil. However, reading through Armstrong’s book, it
becomes apparent her God is not quite so mysterious and ineffable after all.

Indeed, Armstrong says that “God”
is a symbol of “absolute goodness,
beauty, order, peace, truthfulness, justice…”[v].
Not only does Armstrong appear here to be effing the ineffable, it seems she
also thinks she knows things about
this indescribable transcendence of which “God” is the name. She knows not only that it is the sort of
thing to which moral concepts apply, but also that the correct concept to apply
is absolute goodness rather than, say, absolute indifference, or absolute evil.
How is she able to know this?

Because it turns out that what
“God” symbolizes isn’t something entirely
incomprehensible and ineffable. “God” says Armstrong, refers to a “sacred
reality” of which she supposes some of us, after lengthy immersion in the right
sort of religious practices, can at least catch “momentary glimpses”[vi].

Armstrong’s book is in large
measure an exercise in such dodging and weaving. When objections such as the
evidential problem of evil are raised, Armstrong pulls the protective cloak of
ineffability around her God, rendering him invulnerable. But then, when it
suits her, she lets the cloak slip a bit, so that certain dedicated religious
folk can take a peek and provide us with at least some hints about the nature
of this “sacred reality” that she supposes is out there – a reality which, it turns
out, can be described as absolute goodness, beauty, order, peace, truthfulness,
justice and so on after all. This is another example of seesawing between
effable and ineffable meanings.

Of course, if Armstrong could justify her view that the use of “God”
is such as to allow her to say God is absolute goodness, beauty, order, etc.
but not such as to allow critics to run the evidential problem of evil, then my
suggestion that Armstrong is just seesawing back and forth between meanings to
suit herself would be unfair. But I can find no such justification in
Armstrong’s book, or even any attempt to provide one.

The apophatic theologian

Some theists hold the “apophatic”
view that we cannot say what god is,
only what he is not. Apophaticism is
associated particularly with the Christian philosopher Aquinas and the Jewish
philosopher Maimonides, who said:

"No attributes
of God can be inferred - He is Infinite and we can only say what He is not."

The immunizing potential of
apophaticism is obvious. If you never say what God is, then you can never be
contradicted or proved wrong. Refuse, for example, to say that God is
all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, and the evidential problem of evil is
no longer a problem.

Professor Denys Turner of the
University of Cambridge is a theologian who embraces a version of apophaticism.
According to Turner, “God” stands for something radically other – something
beyond our understanding. “God” is not the name of a further “thing” that
exists in addition to chairs, tables, planets, and the universe. To describe
God, we would need to categorize him, but, argues Turner, he is beyond
categorization – he is not an instance of any kind, not even a unique instance,
for “there cannot be a kind of thing such that logically there can be only one
of them.”[vii]

It might seem, then, that Turner’s
version of theism offers the atheist nothing to deny. The atheist says,
“There’s no such thing as God”, to which Turner replies: “Yes, I agree, there’s no such thing!”

Still, Turner thinks there remains something affirmed by theists that
atheists can deny, and this is that “the world is created out of nothing”[viii].
“God”, suggests Turner, is the name of whatever is the answer to the question
“Why is there anything at all?”[ix]Turner
sums up what he thinks any decent sort of atheist has to do like so:

It is no use
supposing that you disagree with me if you say, “There is no such thing as
God’. For I got there well before you. What I say is merely: the world is
created out of nothing, that’s how to understand God. Deny that, and you are
indeed some sort of decent atheist. But note what the issue is between us: it
is about the legitimacy of a certain very odd kind of intellectual curiosity,
about the right to ask a certain kind of question.[x]

Note Turner’s concluding remark
that the issue between the atheist
and a theist like himself is whether a deep curiosity about such questions as,
“Why is there something rather than nothing?” is even legitimate. In fact,
Turner then goes on to characterize the atheist as a person who isn’t engaged
by such questions, as a stodgy, unimaginative lump who remains steadfastly
unamazed by the fact that there is anything at all. But if that’s what an atheist is, then I’m not an atheist, and neither are
most philosophers (which will come as a surprise to very many of them).
Personally, I’m fascinated by the question “Why is there anything at all?” and
have been for as long as can remember. Does that mean I am a theist?

No. For a start, I acknowledge the possibility that there is no answer to
that question, because no answer is required. Perhaps, as is sometimes the case
with philosophical questions, there’s something wrong with the question
(perhaps asking “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is a bit like
asking “What’s north of the north pole?”)

But in any case, even if the
question is proper (and I acknowledge it might be), and indeed, even if it does
have an answer, does it follow the answer is God? Because Turner simply defines
“God” as whatever is the answer to the question, it follows his answer must be
“yes”. But notice how very thin a notion of God Turner is working with. To say
God might exist is to say no more than that there
might be an answer - an answer about which, Turner adds, nothing positive
can be said.

The truth, of course, is that most
apophaticists aren’t just suggesting we take the question of why there is
anything at all seriously. Nor are they just saying there’s an answer to the
question. Even while professing ignorance about the transcendent whatsit (I’m
trying to avoid the word “thing”) they suppose is the answer, they usually have
a great deal lot to say about it, even if it’s all heavily qualified and
couched in the language of analogy, metaphor and so on. Indeed, most
apophaticists appear to think this transcendent whatsit worthy of our worship
and gratitude, which raises the question of how, if “God” is a label for some
unknowable, incomprehensible reality, they can be in a position to know that
worship and gratitude are appropriate attitudes for us to have towards it. In
fact, if Turner is right and the world is created, doesn’t the appalling amount
of suffering the world contains give us excellent grounds for adding two more
characteristics to the list of those apophaticists say their God is not – their God is not worthy of either our worship or gratitude?

The unexplained analogy

Another example of Moving The Semantic Goalposts is the unexplained analogy.

In my introduction (2nd
appendix), I outlined an objection to a certain sort of argument for theism –
the argument that the universe appears, for example, to be fine-tuned, and that
an intelligent designer god provides the best available explanation for its
fine-tuned character. If God is supposed to be a non-temporal agent - a sort a
cosmic super-intelligence that creates time and space - then we run up against
the objection that talk of such a non-temporal agent appears to make scarcely
more sense than, say, talk of a non-spatial mountain.

To recap: for something to be a
mountain requires that it have parts spatially arranged in a particular way. It
must have a summit and sides, for example, which requires that one part be higher than another. Strip away this
spatial framework, and talk of there being a mountain no longer makes sense.

Similarly, to talk of an agent is
to talk about a being that has beliefs and desires on the basis of which it
more or less rationally acts. However, the concepts of belief and desire are
concepts of psychological states having temporal duration. But if desires are
states with temporal duration, how could this agent possess the desire to
create the universe? And, we might add, how did this agent perform the act of
creation if there was not yet any time in which actions might be performed?

In order to deal with this sort of
difficulty, we might, as some theists do, insist that theistic talk of an
intelligent designer should not be understood literally. We are positing, not literallyan intelligent agent, but something merely analogous to such an agent.

But does this shift from literal to
analogical talk succeed in salvaging the explanation of fine-tuning? Compare a
similar case. Suppose I try to explain some natural phenomenon by appealing to
the existence of a non-spatial mountain. Critics point out that talk of
non-spatial mountains is nonsensical. I roll my eyes and insist they are guilty
of a crude misunderstanding. I am not talking about a literal mountain, oh no, but something merely analogous to a mountain. Does this save my explanation?

Not yet. Suppose my analogy is
this: that the guilt of a nation concerning some terrible deed weighs down like
a huge mountain on the collective psyche of its citizens. This is an
interesting analogy that might be developed in various ways. Notice that it does actually avoid the conceptual
problem that plagues the literal version of the claim. Guilt, it would appear,
really isn’t the kind of thing that occupies space in the way a literal
mountain does. There’s no conceptual problem with talk of a non-spatial
mountain of guilt.

But remember – I’m supposed to be
explaining some natural phenomenon by means of my analogy. Suppose the
phenomenon is a major earthquake. People wonder why the earthquake occurred. I
maintain the earthquake is a result of the vast weight of this
something-analogous-to-a-mountain pressing down and causing a seismic shift.

Now my analogy is spelt out, it’s
clear my explanation is hopeless. Collective guilt can’t cause earthquakes. The
weight of a real mountain might perhaps cause an earthquake, but not my
something-merely-analogous-to-a-mountain. That which is merely analogous to a
mountain doesn’t possess the same set of causal and explanatory powers that a
real mountain possesses.

You can now see why those who try
to explain features of the universe by appealing to something merely analogous to an intelligent agent have a
lot of explaining to do. The onus is on them to explain:

(i)exactly what the intended analogy is,

(ii)how the analogy avoids the charge of nonsense levelled
at the literally-understood version of the claim, and

(iii)how this
something-merely-analogous-to-an-intelligent-designer is nevertheless supposed
to retain the relevant explanatory powers that a real intelligent designer
would possess.

At least my explanation of the
earthquake by appealing to a non-spatial mountain answered questions (i) and
(ii). However, I failed to explain how my something-analogous-to-a-mountain
could cause or explain an earthquake.

Often, theists don’t even bother to
explain (i) and (ii). When asked how we are supposed to make sense of such a
non-temporal agent, they just say, “Oh dear – you’re guilty of a crude
misunderstanding. You see, talk of an intelligent designer is not meant to be
understood literally. It’s merely an analogy.” As if insisting that it’s an analogy
is, by itself, sufficient to deal
with the problem raised. It is not.

Unless these theists can provide
satisfactory answers to these questions, the problem with their explanation
remains. Their introduction of an unexplained analogy brings the debate about
intelligent design, not - as its proponents seem to imagine - up to a level of
great sophistication and profundity, but down to the level of evasion and
obfuscation. In truth, they’re engaging in little more than a bit of
sanctimonious hand-waving.

None of this is to say that the use
of analogy might not provide us with a useful tool in thinking about God. My
objection is not to the use of analogy per
se, but to the shift from a literal to an unexplained analogical meaning as
an immunizing strategy to deal with objections: “Ah, you’ve misunderstood. You
see – it’s merely an analogy. So - problem
solved!”

Appeals to use

One of the most intriguing methods
of immunizing religious claims against possible refutation is to insist they’re
not really claims after all. If no
claim is made, well, then, there’s no claim there for the theist to be mistaken
about, or indeed for the atheist to refute.

If you choose to immunize your
religious beliefs against rational criticism by this strategy, appealing to the
philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein is useful, as Wittgenstein stressed the
variety of ways in which language is used. Yes, language is used to make
claims, but it’s used in many other ways too. Wittgenstein warns us against
being seduced by superficial similarities between sentences into overlooking
these deeper differences in use.

So if, for example, your claim that
God exists is met with some devastating-looking objections, you might try this:

“Ah, I see you are guilty of a crude
misunderstanding. You have understood me to be making some sort of claim that
you might refute. But of course, as Wittgenstein explained, and as
sophisticated religious people like myself know, “God exists” is not used to
make a claim at all. The sentences “God exists” and “I believe God exists”
might look similar to sentences such as “Electrons exist” and “I believe Mount
Everest exists”, but pay close attention and you will see that their use is
very different.”

But if religious language is used,
not to make claims, but in some other way, how
is it used? And, crucially, how does this difference in use mean that what is
said is then immune to refutation?

Let’s look briefly at three
suggestions: that “I believe in God” is used (i) to express an attitude, (ii)
to make a promise, (iii) to express our trust.

(i)
Expressing an attitude

Expressivist theories crop up in
several areas of philosophy. Take moral discourse, for example. We say that
things are morally good or bad, right or wrong, and so on. Of course

Killing
is wrong

looks very much like it is used to
make a claim, a claim which, we suppose, is true (of innocent humans, at
least). However, if those words are used to make a claim, and if claims are
made true by facts – e.g. if my claim that “The pen is on the table” is made
true by the fact that the pen is lying there on that table - then we face the
philosophical puzzle of finding the peculiar fact that makes “Killing is wrong”
true. Where is it? And how do we find out about it? Readers who have some
knowledge of moral philosophy will know these are not easy questions to answer.

The philosopher A. J. Ayer
developed an ingenious solution to this puzzle.[xi]
He maintained that although “Killing is wrong” might look like it’s used to make a claim, it is actually used very differently
– to express an attitude. Consider:

Hoorah
for the Red Socks!

Boo
to killing!

Neither of these sentences is used
to make any sort of claim. They are used, rather to express how we feel about
something.

On Ayer’s view, moral talk is also
expressive. “Killing is wrong” is used, in effect, to say, “Boo to killing!”.
We use the sentence to express an attitude of disapproval towards killing. But
if “Killing is wrong” is used expressively, then what is said is also neither
true nor false. But then no mysterious moral fact is required to make it true. Puzzle solved!

Ayer’s theory of how moral language
is used is called emotivism or, for
obvious reasons, the boo-hoorah theory.

You have probably already guessed
how an expressivist account of how “God exists” is used might be used to
immunize what is said against any sort of refutation. True, the sentence “God
exists” looks superficially similar to, say, “electrons exist”, which is used
to make a scientific claim. And when it comes to such scientific claims, it
makes sense to ask what the evidence is for supposing it is true. The claim
that electrons exist could also turn out to be false. But what if, despite the
superficial similarity between the two sentences, “God exists” is used
differently? What if it is used, not to make a claim, but to express an attitude?

What sort of attitude? Perhaps an
attitude of awe and reverence towards the universe. Perhaps to say “God exists”
is, in effect, to go, “Oh Wow!” in amazement that the universe exists at all.
If that’s how “God exists” is used, then, because no claim is made, the theist
cannot be making any kind of error, and the atheist is left with nothing to refute.

So, if, having said “God exists”,
the theist is faced with an objection, they might try to sidestep that
criticism by saying, “Oh dear, you appear to have misunderstood. You have
supposed I was making some sort of claim
that you might refute. No no, no, I
was… expressing an attitude of awe and wonder.”

Again, notice how very thin a
variety of theism this is. Actually, given that atheists are also awed by the
mystery of why there is anything at all, it seems it would also be appropriate
for them to say, “God exists!” While this sort of theism might succeed in
immunizing itself against any sort of rational refutation, it does so at the
price of making itself indistinguishable from the attitude of a great many
atheists.

(ii)
Making a promise

Sometimes language is used, not to
make a claim about the world, but to perform an action. Such “performatives”
include, for example,

I
name this ship Titanic

I
promise to clean the car

I
bet you ten pounds

I
apologize

Let’s focus on promises. When I
say, “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”,
in a court of law, I don’t make a claim about
the world, a claim that might turn out to be true or false. Rather, I make it
true that I have promised by saying those words.

Now suppose we ask a
theist:

Do you
believe in God?

They reply,

I do.

This might look, superficially, much this exchange:

Do you
believe in electrons?

I do.

But what if “I do” in the former case is understood, not as
expressing agreement with a certain theory or opinion, as in the electrons
example, but rather as making a promise.
Compare:

Do you take
this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?

I do.

Here, “I do” is used to make a not claim, but a promise. But
if that’s also how “I do” is meant in response to “Do you believe in God?”,
then, similarly, no claim is made. Rather, a promise is given.

According to theologian Nicholas Lash, this is how theists
such as himself respond to the question, “Do you believe in God?”

If someone is
asked: “Do you believe in God?” and replies “I do”, they may be saying one of
two quite different things, because the English expression “I believe in God”
is systematically ambiguous. On the one hand, it may be the expression of an
opinion; the opinion that God exists. On the other hand, as used in the Creed,
in a public act of worship, it promises that life, and love, and all one’s
actions are henceforth set steadfastly on the mystery of God, and hence that we
are thereby pledged to work towards that comprehensive healing of the world by
which all things are brought into their peace and harmony in God. “Nicholas
Lash, do you take Janet Chalmers to be your lawful wedded wife?” “I do.” “Janet
Chalmers, do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and
earth?” “I do” The grammar of these two declarations is the same.[xii]

So there are, Lash says, two kinds of theists. Those whom, in
response to the question “Do you believe in God?”, use “I do” to express
agreement with an opinion, and those who use “I do” to expresses such a
promise. There are, correspondingly, two kinds of atheism: the atheism that
rejects the opinion that God exists, and the atheism that involves a refusal to
enter into any such promise.[xiii]

According to Lash, atheists like Richard Dawkins are
attacking a crude, unsophisticated form of theism on which belief in God
amounts to belief in the truth of a certain opinion. Lash says,

the atheism
which is the contradictory of the opinion that God exists is both widespread
and intellectually uninteresting.[xiv]

But then Lash actually agrees
with Dawkins that the opinion that God
exists should be rejected. Lash’s kind of “belief in God”, by contrast -
which he maintains is the kind of belief shared by the Jewish, Christian and
Muslim traditions, properly understood - offers
no opinion for the atheist to contradict. If these theists make no claim,
then their variety of “belief in God” can neither be contradicted nor shown to
be false. In which case, the arguments of
critics like Dawkins must entirely miss their mark.

Is Lash’s brand of theism immune to the arguments of critics
like Dawkins?It’s not clear to me
that it is.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lash is correct
and “I believe in God” is used not reveal ones opinion but to issue a promise.
Does it follow that Lash holds no theistic opinion into which Dawkins might
sink his teeth?

While it may be that no claim is madein the issuing of a promise, such a claim may nevertheless be presupposed. Notice that when we issue a
promise, we issue it to someone – to
something like a person. You can’t make a promise to a brick or a daffodil. If
you tried, you would be guilty of anthropomorphizing – of mistakenly supposing
that the brick or daffodil is something like a person. So if “I believe in God”
really is used to make a promise, that
raises the question: to whom is this
promise made?

Presumably, Lash is not merely making a promise either to
himself or to, say, other Christians (if he were, then they, or he, could
choose cancel it whenever they liked). If Lash is making a promise, it seems he
is making promise to God. But then,
on Lash’s view, even if “I believe in God” is not used to assert that one
believes there is a God who is something like a person, it does seem that Lash
nevertheless presupposes there’s some
such person-like being to whom such a promise might be made. In which case,
Lash is committed to an opinion that might, be refuted. In fact, it’s precisely
the opinion that there exists such a transcendent person to whom such a promise
might be made that Dawkins is attacking.

(iii) an expression of
trust

Some theists maintain that “I believe in God” is used, not to
agree that a certain claim – God exists – is true, but rather as an expression
of trust. I believe in God in the
same way as I believe in my wife, or my bank manager. I believe they can be
trusted. I believe they are dependable. When I say, “I believe in my wife”, I
don’t mean that I suppose she exists, but that I have faith in her.

According to these theists, atheists who think that they can
show that religious belief is irrational by showing that the claim “God exists
“ is false are missing their target. Again, “God exists” is not used to make a
claim.

Does this move succeed in immunizing theism against rational
criticism? Again, I don’t see how. Often, when we place our trust in someone,
it’s a reasonable thing to do. It’s reasonable if we have good reason to
suppose the person in whom we are placing our trust exists, and is likely to be
reliable. It’s not so reasonable if we have good grounds for supposing the
person in whom we are placing our trust is, say, a convicted fraudster, or
entirely mythical.

Suppose I say, “I believe in fairies”, meaning by this, not
that I believe in the truth of the opinion that fairies exists, but that I
place my faith, my trust, in fairies to keep the bottom of the garden tidy,
say. If it’s pointed out to me that there’s excellent evidence that there are
no fairies at the bottom of the garden, it won’t do for me to say, “Ah, but I never claimed there was, did I?” Even
if I made no such claim, the fact is
that my placing my trust in fairies is highly unreasonable given the overwhelming
evidence there’s no such thing.

Similarly, even if someone who says “I believe in God” is not
agreeing to the truth of a claim –
the claim that God exists – but rather communicating their trust or faith in
God, we might still have excellent grounds for supposing that this trust or
faith is misplaced. If, for example, we have excellent evidence that there’s no
such transcendent, compassionate being that will ultimately right all wrongs,
etc. Which, arguably, we do (that, at least, is what the evidential problem of
evil suggests).

So, it’s not clear that the suggestion that “I believe in
God” is used to express faith or trust even works as an immunizing tactic.

Now you see it, now
you don’t

We have just looked at three strategies promising to immunize
religious beliefs against refutation – strategies that turn on the suggestion
that religious language is not used to
make claims, but in some other way. We have seen that it’s by no means
obvious that the last two suggestions even work as immunizing strategies.
However, let’s suppose for the sake of argument that they do work. There
remains a further problem with these strategies – the main problem with which
I’m concerned here. The problem is that those employing these strategies often appear to apply them in an
inconsistent and partisan way.

Take for example Nicholas Lash’s suggestion that “I believe
in God” is used to make a promise rather than offer an opinion. Even if this is
true, Lash does also nevertheless seem to offer various opinions on the subject
of God. Books full. For example, in the same article, Lash says God is both
“the mystery we confess to be Creator of the world”[xv]
and that upon which we are absolutely dependent. So it seems that Lash is of
the opinion that there’s a creator upon which we depend. God, Lash says,“freely, and forgivingly, communicates
Himself.”[xvi]
Our creator, Lash adds, also issues invitations to us[xvii]
and is that upon which we should have our hearts set. In short, Lash regularly
uses language that looks remarkably like literal talk about the sort of cosmic
super-person that Dawkins denies exists.

Now an atheist will no doubt say, at this point, “But I disagree with these claims made by Lash.
I disagree that the world has a
creator that is something like a person – a person on whom we should have our
hearts set.” To this, Lash says, in effect, “You’re guilty of a crude
misunderstanding. You take me to be offering opinions with which you might disagree”.

So is Lash offering us opinions, or isn’t he? He seems to say
plenty about God, but then, when it looks like what he said might be subjected
to damaging critical scrutiny, it turns out he never said anything after all.
Lash is undoubtedly a sincere and intelligent man who is genuinely aiming for
rigor and, as far as it is achievable, clarity. But if Lash is doing something
else with language other than giving opinions, why, then, doesn’t he just
clearly and unambigously do that other
thing? Why choose to express yourself in such a quintessentially
opinion-stating, and thus highly misleading, manner? It looks suspiciously as
if Lash is just seesawing back and forth between opinion-stating and
non-opinion-stating use of language to suit himself: opinions are given, but
then whipped away whenever anyone takes aim. If Lash is not doing that – if he reallyisn’t saying anything at all – well then let’s just take him at his
word. Let’s accept Lash really means what he says when he says he has nothing
to say to us, and move on.

The Meta Goalpost-Shifting -Strategy

I have presented several examples
goalpost-shifting strategies. To finish let’s look at one more example –
perhaps the most effective of all. As a theist presented with objections to
your belief, you may employ not only the various strategies outlined above, you
can also shift the goalposts concerning
which goalpost shifting strategy you’re using. Say things suggestive of one
strategy, but then say things suggestive of others too. Then, if you find
yourself running into difficulty with one strategy, just switch to another, and,
if necessary, another. Later, when everyone’s lost track of where the
conversation started, you can switch back to first one again. Mix in some
references to clever and difficult thinkers (Wittgenstein is particularly
useful here), pursue The Meta-Goalpost-Shifting
Strategy with an air of calm intellectual and spiritual superiority, and
many will be duped into thinking that, rather than a master of the dark arts of
semantic sleight-of-hand, you are a deep and profound thinker. Indeed, you may
succeed in fooling not only others, but yourself too.

As I mentioned at the start of this
chapter, Moving The Semantic Goalposts
tends to be employed by small minorities within the academic wings of some
mainstream religious traditions: intelligensias who fancy they have a more
sophisticated grasp of what religion is all about than rather more naive
believers (whom they consider as confused as atheists). When combined, in
particular, with Playing The Mystery Card,
Pseudo-Profundity and “I Just Know!”, Moving The Semantic Goalposts is capable of producing an impressive
Intellectual Black Hole.

[xiii]
Lash, incidentally, then goes on to argue that the latter sort of atheism is impossible, as “effective refusal to
have anything to do with God can only mean self-destruction, annihilation,
return to the nihil from which all
things came” (p 35) Lash’s argument
for the impossibility of this kind of atheism contains two obvious flaws, (i)
Lash here just assumes that there is
a God from which all things came, and (ii) in case Lash muddles up two senses
of ”refusal to have anything to do with”. I can refuse to have anything to with
my mother in the sense that I can ignore her, etc. but of course I still have something to do with her, and indeed do
so necessarily: it remains true that if she had not existed, then neither would
I. Atheists might similarly refuse to have anything to do with God even if
there is, as Lash here just assumes, a God on which their existence depends.

12 comments:

Armstrong has quite the conundrum. She can't say whether or not God (and therefore God-given morality) is good, yet she believes God is good nevertheless. What standard is she using to judge the things she presumably knows empirically about God?

And, apropos of nothing, inhabitants of Eth are obviously called Ethlings.

Hi Stephen, wonderful post you have here. A few years ago I gave up on Christianity and theism because of many of the issues you raised here, especially the one about meta-goalpost shifting. As an apologist of sorts, I was aware of the many problems you stated, and that I had been running in circles between them for many years. I finally gave up, realizing that 'God's existence' was somewhere in the limboland of all those words, but not in reality.

I wanted to comment on what I personally think brings cohesion to the analogical perspective of "sophisticated" theists, but once pointed out, I think ironically can help to show what's lacking in theistic rhetoric: that is the life of prayer and/or sincere religious devotion. When I was a Christian, I used to think about God in many of the same ways, as an analogy for something "greater" than a person, maybe even a being. I even recognized that i was using my names for him (that he supposedly revealed) and ascribed attributes to him and praised him for them, only on a sort of great metaphorical stage. But what's important is that it even ALLOWED me to pray or engage in religious devotion in the first place. Ultimately, what's so appealing about the religious life are these privileges, such as being able to actually go to the all-powerful maker of the universe (whether he/she/it/whatever actually exists or not) and speak your problems or your praises or whatever, and ACTUALLY feel like someone's listening and can maybe actually help.

What the theologian really wants to exist is a reality wherein his supplication and religious behavior is justified. For many, the meta-goalpost shifting serves as the final tactic, not just in debates, but in self-justification too, for their behavior after they've become too tired from being shored up by the smaller, more specific critiques of theism. It's like all theistic apologists are really getting at is: "I'm not crazy to talk in a room by myself when's there's no justifiable reason to believe anyone or anything is listening, I swear!" These sorts of theologians may say they don't believe in a "thing" called God, but they certainly talk to one as if they do. That's the reality they want to preserve. Once I stopped feeling like anything was hearing my prayers, I finally saw through my rhetoric as the figure-eighted loop it was, and walked away.

Many thanks Nikolas - and yes I agree with your observation and understand why you gave up. As the philosopher John Searle once said: "You have to be a very recherche religious intellectual to keep on praying if you don't believe there's any real God outside the language who is listening to your prayers".

Symmetria prisca is a value one should use when discussing philosophy.

Claiming that "God exits" and the "electron exists" is not equivalent. This is because the concept of God is essentially based on "gut instinct" while the concept of the "electron" is based on episteme.

The religious believe in their myth but, the atheist also believes in his or her on myth.

That being the "myth of reification"...it is because of this myth that the atheist believes that God and the electron are equivalent.

For example, explain to an atheist that things like complexity, chaos, and probability are not real things in the universe, i.e. they do not exist; they will be dumbfounded.

Explain to them that such things merely describe human "relationship with the world", and that this relationship is merely a structure...they will not believe you...

They will not believe because they believe in the myth of reification.

Atheists are just as guilty of this "sleight of hand thingy".

For example, if one discusses the existence of the "Tooth Fairy" with them...and you ask them to give you a probability of their existence; they will inevitably give you a non-zero probability...they do this because they believe probabilities of 0 or 1 cannot exist in the universe (this is a consequence of believing in the myth of reification).

They will then state that yes, the probability of the Tooth Fairy is non-zero...therefore there is a possibility that the Tooth Fairy exists. BUT, then they will say that they have "no evidence", i.e. empirical evidence that it exists...therefore, they don't believe in the Tooth Fairy.

This is a very good example of "moving the goal posts", but even more it tells you the reification bias view of the world they have...

You know the one thing that I do find really odd and non-sensical in these atheist/religious debates is that atheists seem to have an issue concerning "evil" i.e. why does it exist?

I would have thought that the model of natural selection would have given them the answer that "evil" has to exist!

What I mean here is; how about if you apply natural selection theory to this (for want of a better model) "ethical space".

Suppose evil and good are two measures of "ethical fitness" in a population. I won't go into details, but if you look up Muller Ratchet and try to apply it to this space....one could look at "evil" as being bad ethical mutations of this ethical space and "good mutations" improving the fitness of this space.

Now, say a population is close to the optimum ethical fitness...this means good fitness is going to find it very difficult to improve...but, it does mean that evil will decrease the ethical fitness...

Now, it could be that "evil" and "good" are necessary to reach a critical ethical fitness in a population where the effects of harmful ethical mutations and beneficial ethical mutations just balance.

In other words, the dynamic ethical-mutation selection balance point in a population just balance, i.e. ethical equilibrium.

I think the key point in this model is that such a balance could be achieved when a population has a high ethical fitness.

So, in this model...evil is indeed necessary...actually it is paramount that it exists!

Which for me (using theoretical physics as my model) means only one thing.

If one comes up against a question that looks like there is no answer...

It doesn't mean that there is a problem with the question.

It is telling you that there is a problem with the model you are trying to use to answer the question, i.e. the model is wrong.

I think perhaps you should look to mathematics for your answer, rather than physics.

There are formally undecidable propositions in mathematics, that are indisputably *mathematical* questions -- and to which there are no useful physical analogues for solution.

So, asserting that the model is "wrong" is, to put it mildly, not helpful; and if your next step was to assert that "Given model X, we can solve problem Y, so model X must be true!", your answer is not only unhelpful, but quite possibly wrong.

Recently I've been pondering the idea of God as a World 3 concept, in Popper's Three Worlds theory.

This has the advantage of seeing God as an entirely human-constructed concept, and also real. We atheists don't have to be scared of it, because in this sense God is real in exactly the same way as the Easter Bunny -- common cultural property that returns to influence World 2 (inner experience) and World 1 (the physical world, influenced through people's actions.

The difference of course is that the God concept has been analyzed a lot more than the Easter Bunny, and has had a lot more influence on people's experience. If God is World 3, it can still be discussed, evaluated, and criticized, despite its ambiguous and paradoxical nature.

What's most interesting is that if we use a healthy dose of myth/metaphorical reading, the gospels and Paul are almost fully amenable to such a view.

I am NOT a desperate theist, trying any means possible to hold onto God. I just find this approach interesting, especially when read anachronistically on to Paul.